Ask A Scientist

As I ventured into the Education Development Center’s Genetic Counseling web lab this week one of the studies related to sickle-cell anemia. I was surprised to learn the allele for sickle cell anemia was considered recessive since it expresses itself. I decided this was a question I would pose to the scientist: Why is the allele for sickle cell anemia considered recessive if it expresses itself?

The response I received from the scientist was very informative. Before responding to my question he said how important it was to first understand how red blood cells carry oxygen to the entire body. Hemoglobin, a vital oxygen-carrying molecule consists of four protein subunits, two copies each of the alpha chain and the beta chain, which combine with iron to form the fully functional molecule. Hemoglobin binds oxygen in the lungs and then releases it in tissues and organs where it is needed.

When normal hemoglobin becomes deoxygenated, it remains soluble. When hemoglobin S molecules unload their oxygen cargo to a tissue, the deoxygenated hemoglobin S molecules bind to each other and crystallize within red blood cells by forming large sheet-like aggregates. This deforms the red blood cells, making them rigid and unable to bend as they travel through small blood vessels, so that they get stuck and trigger the characteristic—and painful—crises of sickle cell anemia.

It is due to these physical symptoms of the disease that sickle cell anemia is considered to be a recessive genetic condition. People who inherit only one sickle cell allele (and therefore have equal numbers of normal and mutant hemoglobin molecules in their red blood cells) normally don’t have the disease.

On the other hand, people who inherit two copies of the mutated gene (these people are called homozygotes) develop active sickle cell disease. Because two sickle cell alleles are required to engender the disease, sickle cell anemia is considered to be recessive and the sickle cell allele is called the recessive allele.

One item I found quite interesting is extreme conditions where environments have very low oxygen availability, such as very high altitudes, people with one sickle cell allele can develop symptoms of the disease. The sickle cell allele would be considered dominant under these circumstances.

I will begin implementing this website into my classroom this week. In my classroom there is a discussion board for math and science. While introducing content all through its completion, students generate excellent questions which are then placed on the discussion board. We usually research their questions on the Internet as a whole class. Due the experience afforded me today, I will have the students research their own questions via Ask a Scientist. Their questions and responses will then be posted to our class blog allowing all students and parents to glean knowledge.

References:

Ask a Scientist. (2010). Ask a question. Retrieved from http://www.askascientist.org/

Education Development Center. (2010). Genetics webs lab directory. Retrieved from http://www2.edc.org/weblabs/WebLabDirectory1.html

Evaluating Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

This week found me diving deep into presentation tools, their creative nature, and ease of implementation. Not being the most tech-savvy individual around, I entered each site eyes wide open. Several of these sites were quite engaging, wile others challenged me beyond my technological comfort zone. I found similarities to old familiar tools i.e. PowerPoint, which granted me some comfort.

PreZenit was one such tool. I also believe my students would be comfortable making a transition to PreZentit. The tutorial was simple to manipulate thus creating a limited learning curve. Transitioning from slide to slide was effortless. The program could be accessible from home and school. One item I specifically appreciated was the ability for students to work on the same presentation at the same time. PowerPoint limits this collaboration. This presentation tool was one of my favorites and I would recommend this site to my colleagues.

Animoto was one tool I know my students would totally engage in. As I ventured into the education area of Animoto, I spent time researching how to bring lessons to life. The music, the photos, the equipment are the best I’ve ever seen. The site offered several demos to view, each highly creative with high quality videos using digital pictures and PowerPoint storyboarding. The cost to use ranged from $30 to $249 per year. Although Animoto does not appear to be the tool I would use for this course project, I would recommend this site to my colleagues. It is an extremely engaging and motivational tool.

A third tool I investigated was Viddex based in the Netherlands. The format appears to focus more on businesses than educational fields.

My.brainshark was a cool tool. It allows you to add your own voice to the presentation or narrate a story or lesson. Uploading videos is what caught my attention as well. I use flip cameras in my classroom and this tool would enhance presentations. Numerous features such as inserting background music and producing a podcast is available. I would recommend this site.

I ventured into Prezi and really like this presentation tool. It appears much different than the others in format. It offers step-by-step tutorials and a complete reference guide manual. This site was only one that I saw addressed educators and a price package ranging from free $59 a year.

The last presentation tool I researched was 280slides. There is no software to download and it appears to be free. I found it much like PowerPoint with greater sophistication of slides. There were numerous themes built in to choose from as well.

Although I have merely surfaced my research on presentation tools, I am looking not for just one to benefit me during my coursework, but others to implement into my classroom. I was very pleased with the various formats and believe a couple of those mentioned earlier would be successful tools for our course projects, as well as, implementation into our classrooms. These new tools do indeed push the boundaries of the technology which is used at my school; extremely innovative, offering numerous means of engaging students. Each of the tools researched are accessible both in and out of the classrooms, offer a variety of sound and video elements, and appear to be quite reliable tools.

References:
http://animoto.com/education/
http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/Presentation+Tools
http://my.brainshark.com/home.aspx
http://prezentit.com/
http://prezi.com/
http://280slides.com/
http://www.viddix.com/